Aug. 30, 2002: The day major league baseball died
Say you're fed up with baseball? Say you're sick of the greed and the absurdity of guys who make millions staging a "labor dispute?"

Prove it. Stop going to baseball games. Only when these guys play in some empty stadiums will they notice. Only when teams actually fold will they realize what the score is. And I don't mean the silly "contraction" scheme hatched by the owners, in which Minnesota owner Carl Pohlad was going to be paid $150 million to go out of business. I mean teams actually folding, ceasing to exist because they can no longer afford to do so, filing Chapter 11, that sort of thing. When the starting rotation for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays has to march down to the Pinellas County unemployment office to pick up their checks, then we'll believe the owners are losing money.

American baseball fans could take a lesson from north of the border. Residents of Montreal have proven how to show disdain for baseball. Expos home games draw fewer fans than the average ballet recital in Suburbia. Expos' games aren't even on English-speaking radio; nobody'll pay the rights fees.

That's how you give baseball the finger.

I love baseball. I admit some complicity. I have gone to baseball games since 1994. (But again, in my defense, I remind you that I did not actually pay to do so.)

And I'm not taking sides. Both sides are wrong. The players are greedy, which is simply the American way. The owners are greedy liars, which, now that you mention it, also is apparently the American way. Doesn't matter. They're both wrong.

Maybe they'll figure out a way around a strike. But if they don't, baseball fan, don't tell me about how you're not going to go back unless you really mean it.